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Man alot of you guys have it rough. Where I'm from, gas is pretty cheap,...public trasportation can get u anywhere quick for a couple bucks, very few places actually charge for parking, and our traffic is good enough that you don't have to decide between public or personal transportation if you dont want to.

Ahh Arizona, the land of cheap gas- and cactuses
I prefer ice over desert

Ahh Arizona, the land of cheap gas- and cactuses
I prefer ice over desert

Actually Northern Arizona usually gets snow every year especially up near the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona areas. Gets pretty cold there. Temperature has nothing to do with whether an area is a desert or not...

Some parts of Antarctica get less rainfall per year than the Sahara desert (or Arizona for that matter) and there is plenty of ice there.

You are very correct. Arizona is a land of multiple extremes. Not only do we have some of the driest, hottest, blistering summers,.....up north we also have some of the coldest winters too. Arizonans up north get massive amounts of snow sometimes so much that people are trapped in their houses and on occasion even die cause of it.

I love it here in arizona. NIce warm winters. Can drive a little ways up north to play in the snow. Can drive a little ways down south to swim in the ocean. And best of all, ony 4 hours drive to Las Vegas,...woohoo

We may not have a lot of traffic, but we have some crazy drivers like ive never seen anywhere else. There is just no way I can trust other drivers enough for me to "cycle" anywhere in my city. Not that I would'nt like to cause I would.

I commuted by bicycle a crapload when I was in college. Was alright, except when I had to carry bulky stuff - but by car is far more convenient. Saves a lot of time, can haul much more stuff, don't arrive all sweaty and smelly, much more comfortable in cold weather, can go much much farther. I occasionally ride my bike for fun and exercise only now. If I lived in a dense metroplex like NYC where driving a car can be a huge pain and had to commute I'd probably get a motorcycle or moped, or use public transit (BART or the El are pretty good, but packed during rush hours).

No, Coal Generated Electricity is being made illegal in California and all those plants are being phased out. I think there are only three left. Natural Gas is predominant though. My electricity is actually generated by a company that specializes in Wind and Solar generation. There are too large wind farms to the north of where I live so I would guess that a good majority of it comes from there.

Now, I am not so naive as to think all my electricity comes from there because my distribution provide is Southern California Edison and there is no way to determine exactly where the power comes from once it goes into the transmission lines. However, even with Natural Gas production, there are millions spent to make sure the pollution is controlled and has a minimal effect. Something that I cannot do as a consumer with gasoline powered machines.

As far as driving, my wife use between 25 and 45 gallons of gasoline a month. Don't have any need for anything else as we usually do not drive very much. In the last two months we have only driven 1200 miles which is about 63 gallons.

It's more expensive than unleaded but we've got a nice quick midsize car and it does 50mpg so it's dead cheap. And you can add 25% vegetable oil to it which reduces it more. My dad has a chippy so we just need to filter the used oil.

If I get a little diesel SEAT Arosa when I learn to drive it will do 65mpg

Don't really know as I haven't researched it. Things like that tend to impact through resultant laws more than corporate changes though. PG&E doesn't serve my area so haven't really paid much attention to them. They are really in no danger of going out of business because they are a government regulated monopoly.